Thank you Mike for giving me crabs

Sorry, I couldn't resist the infantile humour. This weekend our friend Mike gave us a big bucket of blue crabs. Thanks Mike! We boiled, cleaned and ate some of them right away, which I recommend is what you SHOULD do with them. But with the rest, I put myself through the agony of cooking them, scooping out all the meat and using it to make Thai crab noodles. They were delicious but if you're lazy and want to make this recipe I suggest you buy canned crab meat and get four hours of your life back. If someone gives you fresh crabs just boil the little buggers and suck the meat out.

Ingredients:

10 blue crabs, lots of patience and about four hours

OR

2 cans of white crab meat

1 pack of rice noodles (glass noodles are best but any other thin-ish rice noodles will do)

3 sticks celery

1 large bunch coriander

1 big red chilli

For the dressing:

3 tbspns lime juice

3 tbspns fish sauce

2 tbspns brown sugar

pinch of ground cumin

2 tbspns sesame oil

Now if you're like me and decided to take the laborious route and make it with fresh crab you first need to get the crab meat:

1. Boil a large pan of salted water and say goodbye to your tasty looking wriggling friends

2. Chuck all the live crabs into the water being careful to pick them up from behind to avoid getting pinched - those claws are brutal!

3. Boil them for about 8 minutes then plunge them into iced water to help release the flesh inside from the shell

4. Clean the crabs by washing the outsides then put a sturdy knife into the back just under the top of the shell and lever it off. Take out the grey gills at the sides and rinse out the yellowy insides until the white flesh is clean (be warned, your sink will get full of some pretty gruesome contents!)

5. Using whatever implements you can, scoop the flesh out of the claws and the body (easier to do if you snap off the claws then snap the body in half to get to the meat)

Those of you smart enough to use canned crab meat can start the recipe here:

6. Drain any excess liquid off the crab meat and cook your noodles according to the instructions. Rinse the noodles under the tap until they are cold and drain them well. You should even use some kitchen paper to absorb any remaining  water otherwise you will end up with very sloppy noodles with watered down flavour to your dressing.

7. Finely chop the celery, coriander and chilli and combine in a large bowl with the crab and noodles

8. Shake all your dressing ingredients together until the sugar has fully dissolved and pour over the salad. 

If you're not starving hungry (as you may be if you've stood over a sink full of crabs all afternoon) leave the salad in the fridge for a few hours for the flavours to mature.